't you know you would have to inquire around?"

"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was."

"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the executors
that you never inquired. What then?"

He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't anything to
say. Aleck added:

"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with
it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He
is on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is
going to be disappointed--at least while I am on deck. Sally!"

"Well?"

"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an
inquiry. Promise!"

"All right," with a sigh and reluctantly.

Then Aleck softened and said:

"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there is no hurry.
Our small dead-certain income increases all the time; and as to futures,
I have not made a mistake yet--they are piling up by the thousands and
tens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such
prospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth.
You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so."

"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do
not believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without His
special help and guidance, do you?"

Hesitatingly, "N-no, I suppose not." Then, with feeling and admiration,
"And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting
up a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that YOU need any outside
amateur help, if I do wish I--"

"Oh, DO shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any irreverence,
poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without letting out
things to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant dread. For you
and for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I
hear it I--"

Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish. The sight
of this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted
her and comforted her and promised better conduct, and upbraided himself
and remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and
sorry for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make
up for it.

And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the matter,
resolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to PROMISE reform;
indeed he had already promised it.